Reference no: EM133386493

In this assignment you will be recoding a data set so that the data is more meaningful. You should use your final data set to complete the survey project so make sure you save the final version of the data set file so that you can get back to it later.

It is often useful to ignore some values (=responses) of a variable. For instance, notice your frequency of program in the last assignment listed, 12 MAT (Master of Arts in Teaching). We are not interested in examining the graduate programs at this point (there are too few cases to have any statistical significance). The best way to set MAT aside so that it is not represented is to delete it.

1. Open the data with SPSS, do a one-way frequency (Analyze, Descriptive Statistics, Frequencies) of program. We want to eliminate the MAT category. Copy this output to a word file.

2. Save your data file as alumnae survey1 so that you can go back to the original file if necessary. This will only be necessary if you make a mistake and cannot quickly fix it. Sometimes it is easier to start over than to undo multiple mistakes.

3. Go to the variable "program" and find the rows with the value "5". "5" represents MAT. Now right click on the row number and clear it. Repeat this process until all the rows with MAT in them have been deleted.

4. Once you have cleared all the MAT students, run another frequency of program and compare it to your previous frequency. You should find that MAT is no longer listed. Copy this output to your word file.

Note that this procedure removes some of the cases from analysis. But sometimes fewer data points are offset by having more clarity in your data; as is the case here.

There are many times when your problem is not how to remove a response, but instead you want to combinelike responses together without losing any data points. To do this you create a new variable that has fewer different responses but still uses the data from all the respondents. We use the Transform feature for this as well. For example, if you look at the status variable, you will see that the program variable is recoded from the status variable.

1. Before you start this, you need to know each value for STATUS. Go to the Variable View for the Data, then find the values column and click on the "..." for status. A box opens with all the value labels (i.e., 1=adp, 2=trad, 3=peg, 4=vwil, 5=mat).

2. Now do a frequency table for status (Analyze, Descriptive Statistics, Frequencies) and you will see "peg" and "vwil" listed as labels. Copy your output to your word file.

3. Go to Transform, Recode into same variables, select "Status" as the numerical value, then click "old and new values". Under Old Value click range and put 3 through 4. Under New Value, click value and put the number 2 in the blank. Click "add" under new variable and then click continue. Click ok and SPSS should recode the data from peg and vwil into the trad category.